


Diwali

by Adarog (RembrandtsWife)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-11
Updated: 2007-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:01:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RembrandtsWife/pseuds/Adarog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giles and Tara celebrate a winter holiday, but not Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diwali

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt by Kivrin. A sequel to "Monsoon", in a post-"Chosen" AU in which Buffy is dead but Tara is alive.

Walking, he called it, but what Giles was really doing was patrolling. Sometimes with a troop of young Slayers and Watchers, eager to watch the old man, hear his stories, and learn his moves; sometimes alone, as tonight, with only his memories of his Slayer as companion.

Tonight, however, there were no vampires at large, no demons to be found lurking in the shadows. There were too many lights in this part of London, too many brightly-clad humans walking the streets, as immigrants from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal celebrated Diwali, the feast of lights. Rows of little lights flickered in the streets; remembered flames danced behind his tired eyes.

Giles returned home and hung up his coat in the foyer. His house in London was not far from the new Watchers' headquarters and convenient to the tube. The door to the living room opened, and there was Tara, a gold and black silhouette against a curtain of lights. A fire crackled on the hearth, and the room had been filled with tiny lights: candles, lamps, lanterns, all flickering in rows. Deepa avali, lamps in rows. Tara stepped back, smiling, and her fair skin shimmered with every shade of red and orange and gold.

He had not seen her in months. After staying with him at his mother's house in Yorkshire, she had gone to study with the coven, then to visit Willow in Venezuela. She'd written him short notes about her studies and sent postcards with pictures of tropical birds from her time in South America. Her handwriting was round yet tiny, a kind of miniscule.

Giles saw her now, glowing in the light of all those fires. She was dressed in saffron and red, in Indian fashion, a cropped clinging blouse and an artfully draped skirt. Between hem and waistband lay an expanse of bare skin, softly curved. Giles remembered how that skin felt beneath his hands, against his belly. The few times Tara had taken him for her lover were times he would not forget.

Tara bowed her head, a seemingly shy gesture, and her earrings swung forward, brushing her cheeks. Her hair was piled atop her head, glinting with red and pink ornaments. Giles longed to take it down, to see it swirl about her bare shoulders. She walked toward him with a soft chiming sound, the tinkling of copper bracelets, the jingling of bells tied around her ankles. Gold and paste jewels glittered on the swell of her breasts.

She raised her head, lips parted, blue-grey eyes wide. Giles was entranced, as unable to move as if she had cast a spell on him. Perhaps she had. "Welcome home, Rupert," she said, softly.

He found he could move, then: to cup her face between his hands and kiss her, not as one might kiss a student, a protege, or even a friend, but as one would kiss a lover whom one hadn't seen in months. He thought he would remember every detail of the times they made love, but he had forgotten the berry flavor of her lip gloss, the spice of her breath, and the scent of jasmine that hung about her, jasmine and ylang-ylang. He had forgotten the careful determination with which she loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. He let go of her long enough to shrug off his jacket, heavy with concealed weapons, and toss his glasses onto it. Then Giles wrapped his arms around Tara and gathered her close for another kiss.

Her arms encircled his neck; his hands drifted to the small of her back, to touch bare skin and hold her. How had he not missed her, all these months? He'd sent her off to the covenstead with a light heart, glad that she was recovering enough to want to move on, glad that she wanted to train and refine her considerable power. And he had not noticed, somehow, that while Tara was gone, no rain fell in his heart, and nothing grew.

Her hands dropped to his shirt front and began pursuing the buttons again. Giles ran a hand through his hair, watching Tara's wise smile. He let her pull the shirt out of his waistband, then stripped it off, and his undershirt, too, and reached for the hem of her blouse.

Smiling, she raised her arms like a dancer, wrists soft, palms out, and let him draw it over her head. Her breasts sprang free, her necklace twinkling with the movement of her flesh; her earrings and her coiffure somehow remained intact. Giles toed off his shoes and pushed them aside, then cupped those lush breasts in his hands and bent to salute them. They were velvet and jasmine and feminine desire, her nipples peaked, her scent rising.

He wanted to touch her so much that he didn't think of lying down, of moving an inch from where they stood. Until he had kissed her breasts and caressed them, stroked with his fingers under the heavy dangling necklace, kissed behind her ears and nipped at her earlobes and tugged with his teeth at her earrings, he did not think of moving to the long sofa surrounded by candles. But when he moved to pick her up and carry her there, she stopped him with an outstretched hand. Giles stood obediently still while Tara unwound the long clinging skirt, uncovering all her secrets.

He noticed, now, the jewel twinkling in her navel. She must have gotten the piercing while she was at the covenstead; he did not remember it from before. Were there other piercings, still hidden? He knelt, hands coming to her hips, to nuzzle at the piercing and kiss her there, to bend lower and seek permission to kiss yet more intimately.

Tara tugged on his arm. She bit her lip. "I want you naked."

Once again Giles obeyed, gladly. He shed trousers, pants, and even socks and stood as naked as she was--more naked, for she still wore her jewelry.

Now she took his hand and led him to the pillows and spreads laid out by the fireplace. Giles trembled as they settled down side by side, and Tara turned toward him and came into his arms, breast to breast, belly to belly, her legs interweaving with his. All his. She had never been so vulnerable before. He had been careful never to ask her, never to push beyond what seemed comfortable for her. He kissed her and fondled her and she ran her hands over his back, up to cling to the nape of his neck, down to stroke his buttocks, and he groaned into her mouth with delight.

When she pulled away from him and lay back, parting her thighs, Giles took his cue. Her soft moans and the feather-light touch of her hands on his head guided him into long slow strokes with his tongue, not quite rhythmic. Her sex was a valley in fertile earth, and he was the god who called forth the river; she was the goddess whose flow made everything blossom, and he was her grateful devotee.

He was more than grateful when she sat up, and her hands guided him down, and she worshipped him with her mouth, with the earnest and solemn attention she gave to everything important. Now he was the god, offering his lingam, and she was his devadasi, yet the light in the room seemed to come from within her, so she was divine, too... Uma, Ushas, Parvati, Tara, too, was the name of a goddess, a saviouress in rainbow stockings.

"Tara," he breathed. "Tara--"

She drew away, lay down again, and drew him close. Giles moved between her spread thighs and slid home, belly to belly once more. Her hair was coming down, and the necklace shimmered, her ankle bells jingled, as he thrust. Her hips rose to meet his, her hands dug into his shoulders; she hooked one leg around his back and pulled him deeper. Her lips parted and he waited for her to cry out.

She did not; she was silent, as she always was silent, when the orgasm crested, an explosion of light without sound, sound without words. He saw the light rise up through her from the point where they were joined and felt it rise up through him in answer; he saw it fountain out of her head and shower down, transforming everything around her. He emptied himself into her, fire pouring into light, and received back all the acceptance and trust that a lover could give.

They lay amid the slowly dimming festival lamps, in the middle of the light. "The light shines in the darkness," Giles murmured.

Tara answered. "And the darkness comprehended it not."


End file.
